Sunday, May 22, 2005

Quote Them

I can't find a couple of writer quotations that I want, and it's driving me nuts.

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. — Ernest Hemingway

This is pretty close to one I was hunting down; one that had a huge impact on me as a writer. The original went something like "The writer should always know a hell of a lot more about the character than the reader ever will."

Nobody wants to see the village of the happy people. — Lew Hunter

Except my mom. She wants me to move there. You can immediately imagine a screaming mob brandishing torches and pitchforks and rushing up the driveway to my happy cottage, right?

Character gives us qualities, but it is in actions — what we do — that we are happy or the reverse. ... All human happiness and misery take the form of action. — Aristotle

The guy's been dead 2,327 years, but his words still grab you by the throat and shake you until your teeth chatter.

Characters must not brood too long. They must not waste time running up and down ladders in their own insides. — E.M. Forster

How many writers do you want to send this one to?

Look if you like, but you will have to leap. — W.H. Auden

P.S., there's no net. I'm beginning to believe there will never be a net.

22 comments:

"It has never been, and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."

-- Marion Zimmer Bradley

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."-- Les Brown

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people. And therefore I am so grateful to God for giving me this gift of writing, of expressing all that is in me!—Anne Frank

I don’t know how it is with other writers, but most of the time when I finish [reading] a story or novel, I may be pleased, I may even be impressed, but somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking, I can do that.—F. Paul Wilson

I have read wonderfully written books that are entirely unsatisfactory to me because I do not believe that the author was writing a story. The author was writing a book. There is a great difference.—Kaitlyn Ramsey

Style is made up of whatever an author can’t avoid doing.—Neil Gaiman

Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written.—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect, compared with which reproach, hatred and opposition are names of happiness.—Samuel Johnson

There is a difference between writing and being an author. Authors talk. I’m standing here talking now. This has nothing to do with writing.—T.R. Pearson

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."

"I picked up your book and couldn't stop laughing. One of these days I intend to read it." (I think Groucho Marx said this)

"In the final analysis, real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damned thing after another." -John Gardner

"Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use." -Mark Twain

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. –Douglas Adams

A writer is someone who has more problems writing than other people. Thomas Mann

After I had the chance to see some of his original notes and manuscript pages, I accepted my Internal Editor. There's still a chance to get a Nobel Prize despite that bugger sitting on my shoulder. LOL

Robert E Howard (1906-36) provided me with a manifesto in his poem "Musings"

The little poets sing of little things:Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings;Lovers who kissed and then were made as one,And modest flowers waving in the sun.The mighty poets write in blood and tearsAnd agony that, flame-like, bites and sears.They reach their mad blind hands into the night,To plumb abysses dead to human sight;To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled,Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world.